Mayo GAA Discussion

It's been said a few times here but the wind was absolutely vicious. Maybe it wasn't as obvious on TV but it really effected both teams. Galway had similar issues in the second half.

We started well outta the traps and I genuinely think once the effort needed to score was determined (the shooting circle was well in) we literally slowed the game down where we could and wasted time in order to limit their opportunities with the wind. Galway should have been more up at HT but they weren't and lost Comer, who had the beating of his marker but they didn't make enough hay from it.

Second half we came outta the traps and put in some great scores with the wind.

Galways injuries eventually caught up with them and their key player having a major dip in form since last year (Walsh) was hard to recover from. They had a great year last year but came out the right side of injuries and the draw.

There's serious potential with Mayo as there is every year and at the same time we don't know where we are at really after losing to Cork and Roscommon.

Well that draw had a bit of inevitability about it. Dublin probably suits us more than Derry who setup in a manner we just can't break down.

My thoughts exactly - Derry would have been a bad draw for us IMO.

how much more space is there in croke park vs salthill?

refer to post 6177 for the answer. :P

Dublin it is.

The wind was a huge factor - Tommy Conroy's first effort made that clear to me from the start that it was having an impact. We were fortunate that were able to make better use of it than our hosts.

I think there's an element for PJ that his hatred of Mayo clouds his judgement. I believe it was mentioned on one of the podcasts when we drew with Galway in the league that you could see how much he felt the need to get one over on us, and that if it meant that much to him that it really meant too much. I'm sure that has to feed into the dressing room too.

PJ was an outstanding player but I 'm not convinced he's cut out for management.

Its the speed of the the ball of the surface I think rather than the size of the field

Lads talking about how it Galway were unlucky with injuries need to look at PJ, he has run injured players into the ground on a consistent basis.

A real basic and bitter manager who fails to see the bigger picture. I'm not sure how he has gotten away with it, but he has a lot of built-up credit from his playing days I suppose.

Putting myself at risk of getting shot down in flames, but does anyone reckon our lack of breaking ball winning was down to not having Loftus there to do it?. He does usually mop up a fair bit when he's on the pitch.

AOS and Bob Touhy in midfield to try and nullify McCarthy and Fentons athleticism. Mayo did very well to win without a midfield yesterday. Dublin will run over us like a freight train if we set up like yesterday. For me this is the weakest Mayo squad in over a decade and any other county would consider a league win and QF a huge success in 1st year of what is a new development. If Mayo get beaten convincingly which ai think they will the same old clichéd insults will be flunģ at them.

That is the least likely pairing if games imo

They will be the second Saturday game and ours will be the second Sunday game

Every chance but hopefully they're not stupid enough to make it that obvious.

AOS and Touhy... To combat Dublin's athleticism... In what way exactly? AOS isn't a mobile midfielder and Touhy has a few years to go to be up to pace imo. They would be my least likely pairing to play against Dublin.

Ruane and Flynn would be my pairing. Ruane hasn't been at the races for most of the year but he's built for running up and down Croke Park.

Ruane has a great engine but the issues with midfield were there when he was starting. He can't seem to cleanly field a ball, which is literally the problem with everyone in that area of the team at the moment and it's a huge part of why we're losing the kickouts. We are struggling on primary possession and the breaking ball. Dublin will press like crazy the next day, so we need to have some plan.

02.07.2023 (Sun)

GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Finals

 Páirc an Chrócaigh 13:45 Derry v Cork RTE

Referee: Joe McQuillan, An Cabhán (E.T. & Winner on the Day)

Páirc an Chrócaigh 16:00 Dublin v Mayo RTE

Referee: David Gough, An Mhí (E.T. & Winner on the Day)

Ya your probably right about Touhy and right about AOS too nowadays I suppose. I just think we need height in the middle third. We had nobody to field a hig ball yesterday and Reapes kickouts were a shambles because he had no outlet. We didn't win much breaking ball there either. Looking back it's hard figure how we did win. But ya Touhy too inexperienced and Aiden not mobile enough. The more I think on it the more I think Dublin will win pulling up.

Valid question/hypothesis but wouldn't think it had too much to do with it.

Conor wins the odd break in there, as does DOC/Paddy/Stephen/Jack (Coyne and Carney)/Jordan/Mattie/Fionn/Enda/Aido/the rest. Or, at least, usually they do. We were just getting well beat to them yesterday. Partly strategy (Galway frequently outnumbered us heavily at the break), partly outmuscled or outbattled (Conor might have helped on that one relative to Jason/Kevin), partly bad luck (with balls just breaking the wrong side or an inch or two out of reach) and a few times too often simply fumbled/dropped when it could/should have been a clean catch.

Easy to get caught up with the statistics and see it as a big trend that might potentially have a singular cause but it was a pattern that emerged from a few different issues/mistakes/losses repeating independently rather than that one specific thing (unless we want to say lack of individuals able to win their 1v1 matchups aerially but again, wouldn't imagine Conor alone could make much impact there).

I'd tend to give Galway full credit on this one. They worked incredibly hard to prevent the easy short ones or lads breaking at pace to space unmarked (aided by the breeze which made the accuracy on anything less than a give-me too risky to try) and then used their height and physicality around the middle to bully us. Nobody else left in the competition has that height/physicality though (they were probably the best at this last year too even without Cooke) so wouldn't be 'as' worried going into a future game of it breaking in quite the same manner, especially without the Salthill wind tunnel.

I watched the galway game back and have to say that they threw it away in the first half to a level that is hard to fathom. If the roles were reversed and it was mayo that was guilty of what galway were in the game, they would be getting called bottlers and worse from every corner, and it would be hard to disagree.

While on the subject of galway, how many more games need to be totally dictacted by the wind in salthill before they do something about it? If it isnt fit for purpose at the height of summer, they should forget about it for intercounty games.

Also, this stuff with odonoghue on kelly is nonsense. Cant see the incident properly for a start. Was it just a light tap as a warning for something kelly was at 10 seconds earlier? Was it even on the ankle?

Personally, I think if you are that injured that a light contact could do that much damage then you shouldnt be playing, and his management team have let him down by selecting him. I recall c oconnor's dislocated shoulder in 2013. When he got back for the final, the first thing he got was an almightly belt of a shoulder from one of the dublin defenders. It was a ruthless hit. If his shoulder wasnt right it could have ended his days as a footballer. But he was on the pitch and if the guy next to him could be hit with it then why shouldnt he be hit with it also? I dont think you should expect people to treat you with kids gloves because you had an injury. If rod taps hernons ankle with his foot there is no furore, so why shouldnt he be able to do it for kelly? If he isnt fit take him off.

Watched the game back there, a few things I noted:

- we got hands on 5 kickouts in the first half (at least 3, maybe 4 in the 2nd) that we lost, small margins

- the ref did well when both teams were trying to waste time with "head injuries"

- Galway were 7-3 up after 21 mins, only got 1 point for the rest of the half, brutal from their point of view

- Diarmuid should have had a black in the first half, v lucky to get away with it

- Eoghan Mc needs some 1-1 coaching, he's very poor at a lot of the basic techniques

- we were 1-9 to 9 up in the 58th min, only got 1 more point (Carr in the 72nd min), poor enough

- conceding the kickouts was a good strategy, not something we usually do but it worked

- after we lost 3 kickouts in a row and Galway brought it back to 1 point, Hession came short for the kickout which ultimately lead to Carr's point, brilliant leadership from him

- Paddy Durcan was motm for me, he was phenomenal

Fair enough, don't gripe so when you are on the receiving end of it again. Donal Vaughan exacting retribution arguably cost ye the AI final in 2017.

Who has Joyce picked before that was injured?